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  • Sustainability

    At IPG we integrate sustainability into our daily strategy and decision making. Our Sustainable Value Networks, or SVNs continuously collaborate with all areas of the company to create a positive impact on people and reduce our environmental footprint.

    View IPG's Sustainability Report
  • “We are improving our product designs to use safe and circular raw materials…at the end of one use, our product can be used as a raw material for another.”

  • “Everything should be a resource for something else, we should maximize the use of clean and renewable energy, and proudly celebrate diversity.”

  • “We take responsibility for reducing our environmental footprint and promoting sustainability in all aspects of our business.” – PETE DURETTE, CEO

  • “Some of our larger-scale plants have implemented water conservation efforts and successfully lowered their water usage.”

Circularity

We model our SVNs after the key pillars of the Cradle to Cradle Certified Products Program, namely: Material Health, Product Circularity, Clean Air & Climate Protection, Water and Soil Stewardship, and Social Fairness. We discern the vast variety of safety and environmental certifications across the industry while working hard to ensure our products meet the high standards held under the Cradle to Cradle certification process.

Cradle To Cradle is a pioneering and globally-recognized design framework and certification developed by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC). MBDC is a design consultancy that works with companies of all sizes to help them create safe and sustainable products that can be cycled back into the economy through recycling or upcycling. MBDC developed Cradle To Cradle standards and certifications to give companies a framework to reference when developing new products.

Today overseen by an independent organization, The Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation Institute, Cradle to Cradle Certified products are awarded at five levels (Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum), with each level imposing a more rigorous set of requirements. The lowest score in any quality category establishes the product’s overall score.

Certified products include:
● Curby Mailer®
● Curby Fragile Wrap™
● Water-Activated Tape
● PaperSpace™ X-Fill™
● Acrylic Carton Sealing Tape
● Hot Melt Carton Sealing Tape
● StretchFlex® and SuperFlex® Stretch Film
● Exlfilmplus® Shrink Film
● Polyethylene Tape
● Masking Tape
● Flatback Tape
● NovaShield® Structure Membrane

CERTIFIED PRODUCTS PAGE

EcoVadis

In order to measure what we manage, we have implemented EcoVadis scoring to quantify our success and to measure that of our suppliers. EcoVadis methodology is built – and continuously updated – on international sustainability standards (UNGC, GRI, ISO, and more) and is used to identify 21 indicators across four main pillars: Environment, Labor and Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement.

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Our Sustainability Goals

Our Committment:

IPG stewards our environment, provides a safe workplace for IPG employees and manufactures quality products in a responsible manner.

  • 75% of packaging products manufactured by IPG, by revenue, will be recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025 and 100% by 2030.
  • 75% of products manufactured by IPG, by revenue, will be Cradle to Cradle Certified by 2025
  • Our workforce will reflect the demographics in the communities in which we operate by 2030
  • We will meet our commitments under the CEO Action Pledge
  • Obtain 50% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030
  • Reduce energy intensity by 2.5% per year and CO2 emissions by 3% per year
  • Be net-zero carbon by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge
  • Reduce portfolio-wide Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2032
  • Reduce water withdrawal by 2.5% per year, and meet our commitments as signatories to the CEO Water Mandate
  • Divert at least 90% of solid waste headed to landfills and incineration from our manufacturing facilities, to enable all manufacturing facilities to be TRUE Zero Waste Certified, by 2030

Our Products

Our Commitment: 

75% of packaging products manufactured by IPG, by revenue, will be recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025 and 100% by 2030.

  • In 2022, 65% of packaging products manufactured by IPG, by revenue, were recyclable, reusable, or compostable.
  • We are working on redesigning our industrial processes, to reflect more circular technical and biological cycles.
  • We are improving our product designs to use safe and circular raw materials so that at the end of one use, our product can be used as a raw material for another
  • In 2022, we opened a facility in the UK dedicated to the production of our Curby Mailer and acquired a recyclable shrink film manufacturing plant in Everetts, NC which increases our recyclable product capacity.
  • We continue to seek ways to drive demand for recycling by including post-consumer recycled content in our products.
  • We successfully recertified reprocessed plastic at our Tremonton, UT plant as pre-consumer recycled materialwe continued researching ways to recycle some hard-to-recycle plastic packaging products, such as plastic carton sealing tape.

Our People

Our Commitment: 

Safety above all else

  • In 2022, we completed approximately 15,000 safety contacts. Additionally, each site does a formal safety walk every day.
  • The total case incident rate declined from 1.8 in 2021 to 1.7 in 2022.
  • In 2022, we continued infusing traditional safety management system elements into our focused safety management system.
  • Grounded by our updated Corporate Health and Safety Policy, the revised safety management system integrates IPG systems with ANSI Z10 safety management system elements.
  • We rolled out strategic safety Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) focusing on leadership, engagement, and risk reduction.
  • Our leadership KPIs focus on measuring daily safety walks and safety contacts. Engagement is tracked through safety communication meetings and safety pillar meetings, and risk reduction KPIs include incidents closed, action item completion, risk assessments, and corporate safety assessments.
  • Individual facility objectives continued to focus on hazard identification and reduction, employee training, and risk assessment.
  • Site metrics included various leading and lagging indicators, which are reported and communicated monthly. We also updated our safety assessment process, and reinitiated the performance of in-person safety assessments at our sites.
  • Our goal is to continually improve each site’s safety score. Additionally, we continue to focus on pedestrian and mobile equipment safety with standardization and risk reduction.

Our Planet – Energy

Our Commitment: 

To obtain 50% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030 and reduce energy intensity by 2.5% per year.

  • We realized a slight improvement in renewable energy percentages in 2022, in part due to the renewable energy use at our Marysville, MI site.
  • Renewable energy use increased to 3.1% of our total energy use.
  • Energy intensity fell from 6.02 in 2021 to 5.87 in 2022, a (3)% change, exceeding our 2.5% goal.
  • We created a roadmap to help us meet our renewable energy goal, and established a new baseline for our energy intensity reduction goal, due to recent acquisitions.
  • IPG’s Energy Action Plan tracks projects to help us meet our energy use reduction goals. Our Sustainability Pillar Team identifies projects, provides a forum for identifying best practices, and measures progress.
  • In 2022, we expanded our practice of conducting energy treasure hunts, which continue to identify energy savings opportunities across our sites.
  • In 2022, two of our plants, Blythewood, SC and Tremonton, UT, received ISO 50001 certification, joining our Danville, VA and Truro, NS facilities, certified in 2020 and 2021.

Our Planet – Climate

Our Commitment: 

Reduce CO2 emissions by 3% per year; be net carbon zero by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge, and reduce portfolio-wide Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2032.

  • In 2022, our Scope 1 emissions increased by 2%, while our Scope 2 emissions decreased from 111,624 metric tons in 2021, to 102,880 metric tons in 2022, or (8)%. Collectively, our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions decreased by over 7,700 metric tons, or (5)%, against our annual goal of 3%.
  • In 2022, we became signatories to the DOE Better Climate Challenge, adding to our prior commitments. This supports and reinforces our partnership with CEBA, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a group of large, clean energy buyers, energy providers, and service providers working with non-governmental organization partners to unlock the marketplace for nonresidential energy buyers, and enables a more rapid transition to a zero-carbon energy future. Our work to meet these commitments is ongoing.
  • We continue to report to the CDP, and received a score of B on our latest submission. For our commitment to science-based targets, we began the effort to gain certification of our targets, which we anticipate receiving this year. We also continued to make progress on understanding and quantifying our Scope 3 emissions. Previously unreported sources have been identified and added to our energy use data, which will enable us to start reporting our Scope 3 emissions next year.

Our Planet – Water

Our Committment:

Reduce water withdrawal by 2.5% per year, and meet our commitments as signatories to the CEO Water Mandate.

  • For 2022, overall water withdrawal was essentially flat, and water use in water-stressed areas went down. At the end of 2022, total water withdrawal increased by <1% over 2021, while water withdrawal in water stressed regions decreased to 26% from 30% in 2021.
  • A water risk analysis conducted by IPG in 2020 determined that seven of our operating facilities were in parts of the world considered to be at high or extremely high-water risk. As signatories to the CEO Water Mandate, we have committed to continuous progress against six core elements of water stewardship, including direct operations, supply chain and watershed management, collective action, public policy, community engagement, and transparency.
  • IPG’s Water Conservation Team, made up of various plants in water-stressed basins, and joined by our Marysville, MI and Carbondale, IL locations, is focused on identifying and implementing water use reduction projects.
  • Some of our larger-scale plants have implemented water conservation efforts and successfully lowered their water usage, including one chiller project at our Truro, NS facility that reduced water withdrawal at the site.
  • In 2022, IPG’s Carbondale facility installed a utility metering system that allowed the plant to save over 2.1 million gallons of water.
  • In 2022, IPG conducted employee training focused on water conservation at our facilities in Asia, among others.
  • Our Danville, VA site joined the Dan River Basin Foundation (DRBA), whose mission is to protect and preserve the natural and cultural resources of the Dan River watershed through recreation, education, and stewardship. DRBA helped the Danville plant conduct a cleanup of the campus for Earth Day. In addition, DRBA conducted training for IPG employees on how to conduct water quality testing along the Dan River. Our Danville site regularly engages with community groups that share a concern for waterways, including the Pittsylvania County Service Authority.

Our Planet – Waste

Our Committment:

Divert at least 90% of solid waste headed to landfills and incineration from our manufacturing facilities to enable all manufacturing facilities to be TRUE Zero Waste Certified by 2030.

  • At the end of 2022, IPG’s diversion rate was 59%, up from 41% in 2021, an increase of 18%. Our facilities in Porto, Portugal, Truro, Nova Scotia, Danville, VA, Brighton, CO, Tremonton, UT and throughout India are primarily responsible for the success of the increased diversion rate.
  • Our Zero Waste Policy supports our Operational Footprint SVN’s mission to eliminate the concept of waste, by changing how materials flow through society to ensure that everything becomes a resource for something else.
  • IPG is identifying waste diversion and reuse opportunities, and providing a forum for identifying best practices and measuring progress towards achieving the zero waste goals.
  • Progress towards our zero waste goal is being driven in part by our participation in the TRUE Zero Waste program, a whole systems approach administered by Green Business Certification Inc., aimed at changing how materials flow through society.
  • The TRUE Zero Waste pilot program at our Regional Distribution Center in Danville, VA, was pre-certified in 2022, with certification expected in 2023.
  • We expanded the program to our protective packaging manufacturing facilities and our manufacturing facility in Danville, VA in 2023.